US immigration attorney jailed for operating asylum fraud scheme

NEW YORK, CMC – An immigration attorney based in Queens, New York has been sentenced to five years in prison in connection with operating a scheme to submit fraudulent asylum applications for Caribbean and other immigrants to immigration authorities in the United States.

According to Geoffrey S. Berman, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Andreea Dumitru, 43, also known as “Andreea Dumitru Parcalaboiu,” was sentenced by US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, of the Southern District Court of New York.

Judge Kaplan also sentenced Dumitru to one year of supervised release and was ordered to forfeit US$157,500.00.

Dumitru was convicted on November 19, 2018, of asylum fraud, making false statements to immigration authorities and aggravated identity theft following a two-week trial before Judge Kaplan.

According to the superseding indictment, other filings in Manhattan federal court and the evidence presented at trial, between 2013 through 2017, Dumitru operated a scheme to submit fraudulent I-589 Forms in connection with applications for asylum.

Specifically, Dumitru submitted more than 100 applications in which she “knowingly made false statements and representations about, among other things, the applicants’ personal narratives of alleged persecution, criminal histories and travel histories,” Berman said.

He said Dumitru “deliberately fabricated detailed personal stories of purported mistreatment of her clients, forged her clients’ signatures and falsely notarised affidavits.”